


Reach

by babbyspanch



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, Pining, mac is head over heels, unconscious touches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 18:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10393935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babbyspanch/pseuds/babbyspanch
Summary: Mac likes being wanted. Dennis isn't fond of letting himself want. Mac knows this. It's hard for Mac when Dennis lets himself want while half asleep.





	

The first time It happens, Mac isn’t prepared.

The second, third, fourth, etc. times, Mac _still_ isn’t ready for It. It’s not something someone like Mac is _ever_ ready for.

Dennis doesn’t sleep well. He isn’t good at it. Sleeping is a skill Dennis just hasn’t mastered, unlike everything else he tries.

He does it too late or too early, for short bursts and often just not at all.

The only time he’s okay at sleeping is when he’s having trouble eating and Mac likes that even less.

There’s a reason he peels Dennis’ apples, after all. At least then he knows he’s eating _something_.

So when-- on their movie night-- Dennis conks out right beside Mac on the couch, drooling a little as Riggs starts yelling about being a real cop with a real gun and a real badge, Mac isn’t sure what to do.

This probably means Dennis hasn’t eaten in a few days and it’s catching up with him, but on the other hand…

Mac hasn’t seen him this content in weeks.

Mac was considering getting up and ‘accidentally’ making too much pasta when It happens.

Dennis grumbles, snorts, and turns over toward Mac. Dennis reaches out, brows furrowed and grabs onto Macs shirt. ‘Grabbed’ might be too strong a word. If anything—he sort of paws sleepily at it, right where the worn t-shirt fabric rests against Macs’ very nice pecs.

He can’t breathe.                                                                                 

Dennis’ hand slides up, up, up and rests on the thin skin of Mac’s neck. Mac can feel his pulse hammering. Mac has never felt more awake. Mac has never felt so…shiny. Just… _bright_. Alight and awash with the golden orange sunset hues of 7:23pm on a warm day in March. Dennis’ hand stays there, heavy and hot and so, so wonderful, for three whole seconds.

Mac still can’t breathe.

Gravity pulls the hand back down. It flops between them on the couch. Dennis’ forehead has smoothed out again and his lips are turned up in a slight smile.

Mac takes a shuddering breath in the silence.

He gets up to make some pasta.

***

Once Mac comes out as gay for the last time, it’s a little easier to deal with Dennis reaching out to him in his sleep.

It’s still shocking and an awful lot like sucking on a battery (Mac would know. So would Charlie.). But it’s easier to…. compartmentalize. He likes it when Dennis reaches for him -- it makes him feel wanted by a man, even if it isn’t in the way Mac needs.

Not necessarily from _Dennis_ of course. Just. Wanted by a man in general.

He’s half convinced himself that it’s true.

But then It happens again only this time, bigger, closer, and warmer than ever before.

They are in bed. Dee is out. They are both dozing in the heat and caramel sunlight. They just had dinner, Mac figured out how to jerry rig a grill using one of the stove racks and the burners and they made hot dogs and corn on the cob and potatoes wrapped in tin foil. They sat on the kitchen floor and ate off paper plates and drowned the charred bits in ketchup and laughed together with all the windows open and a breeze rolling through the apartment. It’s strong enough to knock around loose papers and trash they haven’t picked up and didn’t bother to pick up before they went to bed.

It’s one of the best nights they’ve had together in a long time.

There’s been so much tension between them, anger, fights, silence. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But tonight’s been different. Better, easier, sweeter.

Mac feels so thankful that he can’t stop grinning. His cheeks ache and his eyes are all squinty and he turns his head over to lock eyes with Dennis but he’s fast asleep.

The sunlight has carved across his face. It’s hollowing out Dennis’ eye socket and playing across his high cheekbones, making them appear gaunt in a way they haven’t looked in weeks now.

Mac is swelling with relief and joy and so many good, big emotions that he can hardly name them all.

They all quiet when Dennis makes a noise. It’s a soft kind of sigh, low and short. He pushes his face into the mattress and his arm, as Mac knows it will, reaches out towards him. It wraps around Macs waist and then something that hasn’t happened before… Does.

Dennis pulls Mac in. He noses into Mac’s neck, his breath hot and humid on his skin. The tip of Dennis’ nose is cold compared to the heat of the rest of their world. His lips brush Mac’s collarbone and goosebumps break out on Mac’s arms and down the back of his neck. Dennis’ hair is itchy on his cheek.

Mac can’t breathe.

More and more he can’t breathe around Dennis.

And now, in this snapshot of a moment like this, wrapped up close in this man he’s known his whole life. Knows the ins and outs of being around him. Knows the dark underside of his emotions and words and the wildness in his eyes. Knows the golden words and soft looks and the casual touches that he coats himself with. Tries to make himself _palatable_ with.

Mac loves it. Mac loves him. Mac loves Dennis.

It’s one of his quieter revelations, comparatively.

***

Mac isn’t sure where to go from there.

When you realize something like that it tends to either change everything or nothing.

Mac’s pretty sure it’s changed nothing.

Sometimes he has to beat down the impulse to kiss Dennis awake, to wake him up with coffee in bed sharing the mug, to sneak up behind him while cooking and press kisses up his neck.

Things they probably wouldn’t do even if they _were_ head over heels in love with each other and dating for years.

But the impulse stuff is easy enough to ignore. He doesn’t think it shows on his face, he’s always had pretty good facial control. He’s a very good actor.

Sometimes he sees Dennis doing something. Doing the weird thing where he _has_ to shake the plates dry four times, or place the mugs opening up, but glasses down in the cupboard. Something dumb that’s just so Dennis that Mac wants to touch him somewhere. On the shoulder, at the small of the back, on the meat of his arm, on the back of the head somewhere… Just. To touch him. Because he’s _him_.

Dennis is _Dennis_. And god, that’s more than enough for Mac. It’s almost _too much_ for Mac.

And Dennis keeps reaching out. And not just when he’s asleep anymore. But absolutely when he isn’t thinking about it.

He’ll grab Mac’s wrist when they are standing near each other. Only briefly and after he realizes he’ll drop Mac’s hand stand as far away as he can, using Charlie or Dee or Frank as a buffer between them.

He claps Mac on the shoulder more often, because that’s allowed. It isn’t reaching out for something. It isn’t showing a weakness, a desire to be near someone. It’s not showing his hand to anyone who looks too hard for too long.

It’s just a guy grabbing another dude’s shoulder in celebration or congratulations or comradery.

It’s not that Mac thinks Dennis _wants_ him.

He just thinks Dennis doesn’t want anyone to know he likes things.

For Dennis that’s too close to a weakness, to showing something that can be used against him. _Would_ be used against him. His vulnerable underbelly, unprotected and slash-able.

Dennis still yells. So does Mac. They yell at each other, they yell at the world, they yell at the gang.

Mac’s been yelling more than Dennis lately. Been loud and in your face and ready to fight at the slightest hint of aggression, or apathy, or… anything.

Mac thinks he’s pretty good at lying to himself, but not quite good enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> other possible titles included:  
> Big Mac at Dennys  
> Macdonals vs Dennys the classaction lawsuit  
> MACaroni and Dennis
> 
> anyway this is based on that one gifset on tumblr (http://jupetersteel.tumblr.com/post/158403521835/lesbianjimin-anonymous-requested-macdennis) where Dennis reach out for Mac while he's half asleep but then wakes up more and stops like shout out for making m e W E EP??  
> anyway this is my first iasip fic bc i only joined the fandom once mac got gay FOR REAL so shout out to vanessa for being my inside informant


End file.
